The Missing Peace at Columbia University
Professor Peter T Coleman, PhD
On a recent Wednesday evening, a group of my students walked into my class at Columbia looking distressed because they had just left another class where their peers had stood up, pointed to other students, and called them out publicly for signing a letter holding Israel responsible for the war in Gaza. When my students arrived at the building outside my classroom, they found a “doxing” truck parked in front with large video monitors depicting photo images and names of students who had allegedly taken a side on the issue — and a group of other students actively attempting to block the images with bed sheets. The police were also scrambling about campus. My students, many of whom had grown up abroad in societies rife with political turmoil, were visibly shaken. “I’m not sure I should even stay here,” remarked one.
When the atrocious events of October 7th erupted in Israel, Columbia’s community became almost immediately divided, tense, and at times circus-like. Passions have been high, which is understandable given the alarming barbarism of the Hamas attacks and the deep sense of injustice and trauma which underlie these events — and they are also fed by the depth and pervasiveness of antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of hate spiking across this country.
Over the last month, we have seen multiple protests and counter-protests on campus, which have led to frequent closing of our grounds to the public. There was an assault on a female Israeli student by another female student. Hundreds of faculty and students have signed and posted dueling letters on social media taking opposing sides in the dispute, some with inflammatory language. In response, donors have threatened to pull funding, firms have rescinded job offers to students, board members have resigned, and the press have had a field day — descending on campus in droves. Both pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian vehicles have parked on the outskirts of campus, blared music and preached one-sided messages. In response, the CU administration has released cautious statements, posted crisis and mental health resources online, and established several anti-hate and anti-doxing task forces to look into these matters.
Such incidents of course are not limited to Columbia, and have been happening at other colleges and universities across the country. But they seem to be particularly acute at Columbia.
Why?
As I see it, there are several challenges that make Columbia ripe for division on this issue. First, it is an elite Ivy League institution, situated on the Upper West Side of New York City, the biggest media market in the U.S., which has the largest Jewish population outside of Israel. This combination makes us a magnet for national media attention on this conflict, as well a preferred target for outside agitators who seek to capitalize on and weaponize the crisis in Israel to their own political advantage. Second, Columbia has a long, troubled history of deep divisions over the conflicts in Israel/Palestine, which have ignited before on campus — most notably during the last Intifada from 2000–2005, events that were also fueled by outside groups.
Then, there are the deeper cultural challenges within Columbia. The University has a long, proud tradition of social justice activism, going back to the student protests of the Vietnam war in the 1960s and Apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s. This legacy tends to attract administrators, faculty and students aligned with a more progressive, activist agenda. This, of course, can be constructive, unless it breeds a Liberal form of intolerance.
This September, I published an opinion in the Columbia Spectator over concerns about Columbia’s poor rankings for three years running in the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression report on free speech on college campuses, and the consequences of this for the more conservative members of our community. This type of illiberal culture makes us particularly susceptible to quick, extreme, over-simplified reactions by members of our community to fluid, highly-complex situations, such as those unfolding in Israel and Gaza today. These conditions encourage rapid mobilization to protest, but often without the necessary precursor to effective activism: critical reflection on the dilemmas inherent to our positions, the broader international context of events, and the possible unintended consequences of our engagement strategies. Let me be clear, tolerance of free speech does not include that which instigates or condones acts of violence, like Hamas’s horrific attack in Israel, and the timing for expressing free speech must also be considered carefully, as verbal attacks on Israel in the wake of such atrocities will likely only foment outrage.
So, what should Columbia do to navigate through this maelstrom? It will require both a short-term and sustained long-term response. First, the administration must prioritize ensuring physical, psychological and cyber safety and security for the entire community. One step toward this is to offer immediate crisis-management support for faculty and staff to manage their classrooms and other shared spaces in these times. One strategy I use in my courses is to inform students at the onset of a term that I alone have the responsibility to control the discourse in class to ensure it is constructive and relevant to our learning goals. When it threatens to get derailed, I stop the conversation, but then offer to hold an alternative venue at another time to explore the issues that emerged for those that wish to engage — with sufficient time and careful facilitation.
Addressing the longer-term needs of the institution will be more demanding. Columbia needs to grow a new culture that privileges both social justice and free speech — and provides the skills, rules, norms and procedures that allow the tensions between these virtues to be managed constructively. This typically happens over time by intentionally changing the socialization processes (orientation and onboarding) for new members; students, faculty and staff, and ensuring that university leadership at all levels model and reward civil and critical discourse. It is also essential that Columbia establish a robust infrastructure for peacemaking on campus — with well-trained community facilitators — who are prepared to step in when new crises erupt — because they will. Columbia is sorely lacking this capacity today.
Finally, my strong recommendation to Columbia President Shafik and Interim Provost Mitchell today is to immediately stop business-as-usual at Columbia for one week, and publicly announce a new campaign for peace and justice on campus. This should begin by identifying the current network of trusted members of the community — clergy, coaches, RAs, deans, student leaders, ombuds, mediators, and so on — and then gathering and listening to them about what specifically needs to happen today and in the near future at CU. The President should call on all Columbians to fight against the social pathogens of hate afflicting our society and to come together to build a community that has the courage and fortitude to tackle even the most wicked issues of the day, head on, with decency.
Dr. Peter T. Coleman is a professor of psychology and education at Columbia where he holds joint appointments at Teachers College, the Earth Institute at the Climate School, and the School of Professional Studies, and directs the Difficult Conversation Lab. His most recent book, “The Way Out: How to Overcome Toxic Polarization” was published by Columbia University Press in 2021.